


Bitterness

by Abyssia



Series: Fragments of Destiny [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 02:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7739596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abyssia/pseuds/Abyssia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Lord Ryoma now dead, Saizo has one last duty to fulfill, and Kagero is the only one who can help him do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bitterness

It was hard enough to get Saizo to leave the body of his lord, and even harder to keep him alive. His injuries from the battle were grave, but not fatal, and it was all Kagero could do to force him to heal and recover. She herself had dragged him bodily from the throne room, taken him in her arms as he thrashed, begging to be with his lord one last time.

Saizo had refused to miss queen Hinoka’s coronation, despite the fact that he could hardly stand. He swore fealty like any other warrior, but Kagero knew, that he was a dead man standing.

Especially when, Hinoka’s first command to him wasn’t a new position or a place by her side, but a request. She told Saizo to leave the capital, recover and return only when he was fit enough to serve his country again. Kagero was ever so close by his side, feeling from him how the last of his spirit was crushed. While Lady Hinoka had meant to try and let him grieve, all that Saizo had head was that he was now of no use to his new Lady.

Saizo was sent to a remote cottage in a village on the outskirts of the capital. Kagero went with him, Orochi visiting as often as her new duties permitted. Saizo kept his distance and his silence the whole time they existed together in that house. Every day Kagero could see him regaining his strength, and every day she feared what he would do once he was fully recovered.

One day, Saizo disappeared in the early morning and only returned later with a sheathed sword clutched to his chest. Seeing him approach from the house’s hilltop view, she met him in their by now usually solemn fashion. Saizo standing before her for but a few moments before seeming to noticed her presence.

Saizo looked up at her, his bare face almost unfamiliar to her now. His hair was shaggy and longer than it ever had been. Without so much a word, Saizo pressed the katana into Kagero’s hands, his lone eye never leaving hers for a second. “I need you to do this for me. I am asking, no, imploring you to help me fulfil my final duty to our lord.”

Kagero stared balefully back at him, her fingers trembling and refusing the grasp the hilt. “Saizo…you’re asking me to--” she knew exactly what he was asking, she knew it very well. While neither of them were samurai, the traditions and values of the warrior still applied to them. Saizo had failed to protect his master, and now he was to follow Lord Ryoma into the void.

“Kagero,” Saizo said, his voice low and on the verge of breaking. “You are the only person left who I trust to do this.”

She knew what he meant by that. If he had any other option, he would have asked Kaze to do it, his twin brother then would comply without question. But Kagero was in a vastly different position. Saizo was one of the most important people in her life, a dear friend, once a cherished lover; that alone made his request impossible. Not only that, if Saizo felt the need to die, then Kagero would be remiss to not follow suit. For she had also failed in her duty to protect lord Ryoma.

“What would you have me do? You would have me assist your death, and then what? You leave me to bear the shame you are so quick to escape?” she growled, gripping the blade and pushing it back into his chest.

“Kagero,”

“I won’t do it. Not if you insist on being so selfish.”

“Kagero, don’t make me beg.”

“Just tell me this Saizo. Do you want to die, truly because it is your duty to your lord; or do you wish to die because you are too weak to bear the shame of failing him?”

“Are they not one and the same? I failed my one duty, and so that makes me unfit to carry on. I do not deserve to live.”

She could not refute him, all he said was true. “I cannot deny that no. Your dedication to your duty is part of what makes you who you are,” Kagero admitted, her gaze faltering. “But, I cannot do this for you, because I am not as strong as you. I do not trust myself to hold my duty over my feelings for you.”

Saizo stared back at her for a long moment. His face now hard rather than blank. “Feelings? Has your discipline become so soft?”

Kagero sighed. “Perhaps it has. But Saizo, even if you are no longer my lover, you are still someone incredibly important to me. While I want you to be true to your duty, I also know that I do not wish to lose anyone else.”

Saizo continued to hold her gaze, not looking away even for a second.

Kagero reached forward, placing her trembling hands over his, trying to pry his fingers from the blade. “If you are to do this, let me go with you. It need not be seppuku. We can slit each other’s throats like a lover’s suicide.”

The shock of her statement caused Saizo’s hands to drop his blade, and suddenly Kagero had taken both of his hands and was much closer to him than was advisable.

Saizo’s face flushed to a brilliant crimson, and finally he was unable to meet his gaze.

“Kagero, I cannot allow that. Not only is that not the end I deserve, but, there is something else. Another reason that you must live on.”

Kagero frowned, tightening her grip on him, pleading for him to look at her again.

“I overheard Orochi in one of her visits. She was discussing things with the healer assigned to us.”

A sudden fear gripped Kagero’s heart, and she swallowed hard. “Now what could that possibly be?”

Saizo’s face was so red that he was scarcely able to look at her, his hands trembling. “The healer said that you might be with child. But it is still too early to tell you.”

The fear in her chest suddenly bubbled into anger. She remembered the weeks before, how in their shared grief, the two of them had shared an empty but warm night together. And now Saizo’s sacrifice was all the more impossible in her mind.

“Then you mean to make me bear your child alone? Is this how you will punish me? Punish your unborn heir?”

Saizo grimaced, his eye squeezing shut in anguish. “I only mean that I shall be the one to bear both of our sins. But, I will not let my mistakes fall upon the head of an innocent.”

“You mean our mistakes. So we should both live to bear our shame.”

“Kagero, don’t you understand? That is impossible.”

She did understand, she did know that this was fruitless, but she had to try all the same. “Saizo please. I can’t—I--”

Suddenly, for reasons unknown to her, Saizo then leaned down and swiftly met her lips with his own. The bitter taste of his agony now mingling hers. Kagero foolishly encouraged him, digging her hands into his hair and back, remembering every other time they had held each other in such bitter circumstances. Those nights being both too few and too numerous.

Oh how pitiable it was, that at the slightest sign of distress they would fall back into each other’s arms. How they would seek the comfort as the weight of their controlled and calculated existences became too much. It was bitter, it was foolish, and yet their old passions could so easily flare up again. And now for what they both knew would be the last time.

 

 

Kagero awoke at dawn the next day, the morning air a chilling bite on her bare skin. The sun was an unwelcome guest as she wasn’t ready for the haze of fleeting warmth to leave her. Saizo was gone of course. The fact that he had warmed her bed that night was shame enough, and she knew how little more shame she could possibly take.

Looking around the room, worry and dread began to spring in her throat. All of his belongings were gone, including the katana and kaiken that she had tried to hide from him. It was fruitless but she at least had to try.

Quickly she got dressed, a sense of urgency taking her full force. If he had truly done what she feared, he would not have left a note or anything. Leaving the small abode as quickly as she could, she made her way to the hill above the valley. A place that was said to have been the sight of many a noble warrior’s seppuku. Years ago when a Hoshidan rebellion had failed, a whole legion had sent their souls to the sky as was their right as warriors.

Kagero didn’t see him, and she couldn’t sense him. And even though she knew what was almost certainly the case, the remnants of her naïve maiden heart dared to hope. Cresting the hill at long last, she pushed her way through the dense grove, and saw him there at long last.

“Saizo…” Kagero said, her voice quivering. “How could you…how could you do this and not let me follow…” part of her had hoped that when Saizo finally died, that perhaps his face could be peaceful at long last. But alas, his face was still twisted, frozen in his final agony, as he had indeed suffered greatly, and unnecessarily.

Kagero’s cold and calculated nature crumbled under the crushing weight. Saizo’s body curled up, the ground red with his blood. She knew that there was no way that Saizo could go on living, and yes, she never wanted this. She knew that Ryoma wouldn’t want them to follow him. He had died so that others wouldn’t have to suffer.

“He suffered before he died…all because of me,” Kagero breathed to herself, her hands reaching out to clutch at his cold form. It was sick, it was pathetic, but she couldn’t help herself. Even if their love was doomed to never last, she could never deny how important Saizo had always been to her. And now, she felt herself being pulled forward, and she placed her head to Saizo’s cold chest.

It was the end, and now she couldn’t even follow him. The cruelest gift he could ever bestow.


End file.
